Page 98 of Daughter of the Dark

But deep inside, Solana still felt her gift.

Through the smoke and ash and bits of dwindling chaos, Killian was nowhere to be found.

Moving slowly, Solana pushed herself onto her knees beside Reyes. “Killian’s gone,” she said through ragged breaths. “We have to find him.”

The muki were also gone, their bodies nothing but dust in the wind, which meant that Killian could no longer use them against anyone. “He can’t have gone far,” she said aloud and began to collect her power at the forefront of her mind. She did not know where exactly Killian was, but she could sense the essence of his gift like a trail of breadcrumbs left behind. She clamped on to it, ready to find him and remove his head from his neck, but a hand slid around her wrist and grounded her.

“I’m coming with you,” Reyes said, eyes sparking in her shadows. A beacon of light. A guiding star.

There was enough power in her well to rift them both. There would be none left to fight with, but she did not need the gods—their gifts or their curses—to defeat her enemy. She would do it with the skills she had nurtured, the desperation she had been forced to bear, the pain of the losses she carried close to her heart, and the love she had gained through it all.

They landed hand in hand in the middle of Qhilli. People were cleaning blood off the stone and sweeping debris into corners. There were gasps as she appeared in a burst of shadows, but then they saw her through them and the whispers started.

That’s her, they said behind hands. That’s Solana the Cursebreaker.

Killian was nowhere to be seen, but she could feel him close by, running like a coward, afraid of the fate he knew was coming.

As if he could hide from her in these streets. She knew them better than her own mind.

It was the people who guided her with pointed looks and outstretched hands.

“He went that way,” one child said, the door to his home wide open behind him, another small face peeking out from around the doorframe.

They took their time as they followed directions, the whispers flowing before her to announce her presence. There was shouting and metal clashing and then pounding footsteps. Solana did not give chase. She simply strode ever forward, Reyes trailing to the side and slightly behind in a silent dance, hunting partners once again.

The streets of the callejon were winding. There was no specific path except the one made by buildings placed wherever they could fit. They were tall enough that it was impossible to see over them, and parts of the city gently sloped up and back down without rhyme or reason.

And some paths ended abruptly with no way out.

They wove past the buildings that stood tall despite their disrepair. Like her, they served and protected and provided. Their faces decorated the stone everywhere they looked. Savior, Traitor, Hunter, Healer. Proclamations that no longer meant anything at all.

They rounded a corner to find the street ahead empty and quiet. A rock skittered across the ground, and then a figure cloaked in gray burst from a small gap between buildings. Solana ducked, dodging a swipe at her neck, and Reyes lunged over her to impale their attacker on the end of his sword. The man’s hood fell back to reveal a bald head and wide eyes, and then he slumped over. Reyes gently lowered him to the ground and they stepped over his body, quiet and efficient and focused.

Another attacker came, and another died. They left a trail of bodies behind them as they went.

Eventually, there were no more. Only Killian and his frantic footfalls winding deeper into the maze of narrow streets that was the callejon.

Solana slowed to a walk, a victorious smile curling across her face. Reyes strolled beside her with all the confidence of a predator. She knew exactly what they would find when they rounded the next corner, but the truth of it was so much better than she could have anticipated.

“I am your king,” she heard Killian say. He sounded like a petulant child who hadn’t gotten his way.

Under any other circumstance she would have laughed, but death weighed heavy on her soul. Reyes’s presence was steadying as they strode forward, through the crowd that had gathered at the center of Qhilli where their daily market was held.

They parted when they caught sight of her. Blood on their skin, homemade weapons in their hands, ravenous wrath in their eyes. Her people had fought and won, and the cause of their suffering was snarling like a rabid animal backed into a corner.

“I command you to stop. I will have all of you hanged for this!”

Colorful strips of fabric that hung from windows and crossed over the space snapped in the wind. Men and women and children stared silently ahead. Their intensity was almost enough to suffocate. Solana’s and Reyes’s footsteps fell like the beats of an ode to death.

Far away, the midday bells rang, and through the echo of them, the last line of the crowd parted to finally reveal the king.

Killian’s back was to her, one arm outstretched with a sword clenched in hand and the other wrapped over his stomach. He spun slowly and brandished his weapon as a last line of defense. There were no servants with him to persuade. No muki left to command. Only the people he had forgotten, who had herded him like a lamb to the slaughter.

His feet shuffled in a slow circle until he finally came to face her.

Solana strode forward with twenty years of resentment and Reyes at her back. Killian had been expecting conversation, perhaps, by the surprise in his eyes, but Solana was done with words. She flipped her dagger so that it was blade down and made the first move. Killian spun aside and stumbled on a loose rock. He caught himself and leaned away from another swipe.

Faster and harder Solana came at him, the crowd moving with them like a buoying wave, until he was panting for breath and he hadn’t made a single offensive strike. They had moved far enough that his back met a wall with nowhere to go, and only then did Solana ease up.